


please could you be tender (and i will sit close to you)

by PleaseDontGetMeRescued



Series: i think your love would be too much [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I promise!, I sure don't - Freeform, IN THIS HOUSE WE MAKE OUR OWN RULES AND PRACTICE OPTIMISM, Jon is confused, Sansa ships it, Season/Series 08 Spoilers, canon compliantish, do i care?, is this ooc?, is this very much different from everyone else's version of the rest of the season?, nope - Freeform, nope again, who the fuck even knows anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 16:43:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18760372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PleaseDontGetMeRescued/pseuds/PleaseDontGetMeRescued
Summary: Sansa shushes again, voice shaking as she pushes the hair from Arya’s face and presses their foreheads together.  “It’s alright.  It’s alright now.”But it’s not.  It’s not alright.  So many people are dead.-Post 8x03





	please could you be tender (and i will sit close to you)

**Author's Note:**

> Listen this is only semi-canon compliant-ish. I'm making my own rules her because fuck HBO and D&D. I'm not gonna pretend to know what I'm doing but nevertheless, I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> IN THIS HOUSE WE PRACTICE OPTIMISM. I'm holding out hope for a happy ending for our favs. 
> 
> -
> 
> Series title from sunflower by post malone.
> 
> Story title from hard feelings/sober by lorde.

The calls come for their brother first.Bran’s name, loud and terrified, rings off of the fallen bodies and crumbled walls of their home.Arya twitches back into awareness, repositioning her head where it’s rested on Bran’s knee.The sharp throbbing at her temple only intensifies as the cries come nearer.Bran’s hand, where it’s rested on her shoulder, gives a squeeze.“It’s alright,” he says in his calm, even voice. 

 

Arya doesn’t know how long she’s been here, crumpled over her baby brother’s lap, but peering through the familiar branches of the Godswood she can see the first hints of orange and pink as the sun rising in the East.The light makes her head ache, her eyes water.Everything is the hazy sort of distorted from a just woken dream.

 

Sansa’s voice pierces through the fog of Arya’s brain.She winces and takes stock of the space around her.They’re surrounded by the dead, blooding pooling in the snow and blending with the brightness of the Godswood leaves.Under her knees, the ice that was once the Night King is beginning to melt away.Soon, Arya thinks, there will be nothing left of him or his innumerable army. 

 

The hurried crunching of boots approach.“Bran,” Jon says, a shaky exhale. 

 

“It’s alright,” Bran says again, as smooth as still water. 

 

“ _Arya_ ,” Sansa squeaks, rushing to her sister’s side.Sansa takes one arm and Jon takes the other, pulling Arya to her feet.She feels about a million years away, unsteady and half asleep. 

 

Jon cups her face, searching her eyes for something Arya is much too exhausted to decipher.Then he kneels beside Bran’s chair.“What happened?”

 

“She killed him,” Bran states, a simple fact.Jon’s brow furrows.Sansa’s grip on Arya’s arm tightens.“The Night King is dead.”

 

With that one simple statement it’s as if the world is rushing up around her.Arya’s chest shudders.It’s over.They won.They really and truly defeated the dead.

 

Her breath wheezes out of her and all too suddenly she’s aware of the cold ring around her throat, the sharp pains at her side, and the throbbing at her temple.She’s asleep on her feet and sways dangerously.Her gut rolls with a sudden lurch, and the entire contents stomach, acid and swallowed blood, spills from her lips onto the blood-drenched snow, 

 

The last thing she hears is Sansa crying out as the snowed ground rushes up to greet Arya with a harsh kiss.

 

-

 

She comes to again as Jon places her ever so gently onto the soft and familiar furs of her childhood bed.Sansa is immediately pulling off her sister’s clothes, untying her battered armor and lifting her jerkin off of her.Arya blinks blearily up at her from her hazy position among the sheets.She spies a dark stain of her own bile on Sansa’s dress and has the forethought to think her younger self would have been satisfied.

 

As quickly as he was there, Jon is gone, rushing from the room calling for a maester.Arya wonders who the maester is anymore - who is even still alive.Is _anyone_ still alive? 

 

Sansa urges Arya into a sitting position to more easily strip her.Arya cries out, a sharp stabbing in her ribs indicates their brokenness.Sansa shushes her in a soft, sweet voice that is so much like their mother’s Arya feels the tears well in her eyes instantly.

 

“Sansa,” she says, voice desperate and weak and afraid.No One wouldn’t be afraid.But she’s not No One.Not today. She’s Arya Stark.And Arya Stark is in pain now that the adrenaline is draining from her faster than the blood from her head.She’s aware of the pulsing at her thigh, the ache in her ribs and the soreness in her side.Her head is screaming and her throat is as dry as the Sand Snake’s pits.It hurts to swallow, it hurts to move, it hurts to breathe.“Sansa,” she begs, delirious.

 

Sansa shushes again, voice shaking as she pushes the hair from Arya’s face and presses their foreheads together.“It’s alright.It’s alright now.” 

 

But it’s not.It’s not alright.So many people are dead.Beric. And the tiny, fierce warrior Lyanna Mormont. And piles and mounds and mountains of bodies crowding the walkways of her home.People who helped her.Good people. 

 

Nothing is alright.But she doesn’t say that.Instead, she says, “I’m going to be sick again,” and throws up into the bowl Sansa pushes hastily under her chin.

 

She collapses back to the bed, exhausted and ready to sleep for the rest of the long winter.Sansa pulls at the laces of Arya’s breeches, urging her to lift her hips so she can pull them off and get to the long, thick slice at Arya’s thigh.A fresh wave of blood oozes from the wound and coats the sheets.Arya is in nothing but her underthings, dripping red.

 

Jon bursts back through the door followed closely by Samwell Tarley and his woman, Gilly.One of Sansa’s hands is pushing hard on the wound in Arya’s thigh, while the other pushes at the one in her abdomen, trying to staunch the blood.Arya’s grunts at the pressure.Her sister’s pretty, alabaster fingers are stained red. 

 

Jon pulls at Sansa’s wrists, dragging her back and away from their sister.Sansa fights for only a moment before Sam and Gilly swarm with a bowl of fresh water and rags.“This will hurt,” Gilly says in her strange accent before pinching the sides of the wound on Arya’s thigh shut and taking to it with a needle for stitches.Arya grunts again but the pain is nothing to that of Sam prodding at the wound in her side with his fat fingers.Arya gasps, jerking away with a cry, causing Gilly to tut as her stitches go crooked. 

 

“There’s debris in there.I’ll have to get it out or it will get infected.It won’t be pleasant, my lady, but it is necessary.”Arya grits her teeth and nods, suddenly feeling much more aware than she did a few minutes before. 

 

Sam procures a set of long, thing tweezers from his bag and wipes his own face with the back of his arm.For the first time, Arya notices his state.He, too, is covered in blood and mud and the Seven know what else.His eyes are haunted but alert as he stares down at Arya’s wound. 

 

Though the sun is well on its way to rising, it’s still much too dark in the room.“Jon, bring the light closer,” Sam says, motioning towards the lit candle Gilly had brought in with them.Jon does as instructed, Sam leans in close, and the first stab of true, searing pain rips through Arya’s nerves like a wildfire. 

 

Arya _screams_.Sansa whimpers, bringing her red hands to cover her mouth on instinct and smearing Arya’s blood across her own cheeks.Arya tries to jerk away from the intrusion in her body, but Jon holds her down at the shoulders.“Please be still, my lady,” Sam begs. 

 

Arya grits her teeth against the pain, against the name.There’s only one person she’ll allow to call her that.Fresh tears spring to her eyes.She misses him.It’s been only hours since she’s seen him but she misses him.She misses Gendry.She wants him here with her. 

 

Her chest contracts at the thought.She doesn’t even know if he’s alive.She gasps for breath, her throat aching the whole way.Sam pulls another bit of gravel from Arya’s body.She jerks away again, despite her best efforts not to.The movement causes Sam’s hand to slip, sending his tweezers into the meat of her flesh before he can course correct.Arya screams again. 

 

“Arya, _please_ ,” Jon begs.“You _must_ be still.” 

 

Sam pokes again; Arya gasps.She wants Gendry.“Jon,” she says, voice quivering.“Gendry,” she says.“Is he alright?” _Alright_ , she thinks.The word is coming up so much today.Alright is better, but she’d settle for alive.

 

“Gendry?”Jon’s brows furrow.He squeezes her shoulders as she jerks again. 

 

Jon knows nothing, she realizes.Nothing of them.Still, she begs.“Is he alright?”

 

“I don’t -”

 

“The smith?” Sansa asks, pulling the bloodied sheet up around Arya’s waist as Gilly moves away from her legs.“I’ll go find him, yes?I’ll be right back.”She squeezes Arya’s knee and is off in a flash of filthy skirts. 

 

-

 

It’s some time later, although Arya doesn’t know how long.Sam is done pulling the debris from her side and is nearly finished sewing her closed.The terrible pains have given way to the steady, dull pulls of stitches being applied. 

 

She’s started to doze.She’s panting, gaze far away, sweating with the effort of simply being worked upon, when heavy footfalls thump in the hall.Gendry bursts through the wrecked doorway, Sansa on his heels.His face, stern and clouded, breaks into wondered relief when he sees her alive and awake.The storm clouds instantly roll back in, however, when he takes note of her state.Sweaty and panting, literally in a bed of her own blood.Arya reaches her arm out for him.He crosses the room in three quick paces.“Arya,” he breathes, grasping her hand like a lifeline.

 

“Hi,” she croaks.Her throat aches in protest but her chest feels infinitely lighter at the sight of him.

 

“Hi,” he says back.He presses a kiss to the back of her hand and another to her unbloodied temple.Jon shuffles in his boots behind them.Gilly hands Sansa a cloth to wipe the blood off of her face.Sam pulls the last stitch closed at Arya’s waist, making her wince. She relaxes back into the sheets and the room seems to take a collective breath.

 

There are several long beats of silence.No one seems to know what to do next.But there is work to be done.Bodies must be burned and heroes must be honored.Winterfell must be rebuilt.Arya grits her teeth and sits up with a low grunt.

 

“Hey, _hey_ ,” Gendry says, hands on her shoulder at the same time Sam makes a disconcerted sound and Sansa scolds her with a vehement “ _Arya_.”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

“You’re not,” Sansa pleads, moving closer, perching just behind Gendry’s shoulder.Her eyes look sunken and haunted. 

 

“Yes, I am.”

 

“Sam?” Jon gives the maester a resigned look. 

 

“Your sister is right, Lady Arya.You need to rest.” 

 

Arya rolls her eyes and moves to swing her legs over the side of the beds.Her side pulls painfully.She ignores it.Jon and Gendry, each with a hand on her shoulder, hold her in place. 

 

Sam’s nervous voice goes up an octave when he speaks again. “You have 14 stitches in your side and 20 in your leg.Your wounds were deep.If you pull out the stitches there will be a good amount of bleeding.Not to mention there’s an increased risk of infection with all of the-” he pauses.Swallows. 

 

“Corpses,” Gilly finishes for him.Sansa and Jon’s eyes meet the ground.Gendry laces his fingers through Arya’s. 

 

“Yes,” Sam goes on.“You also fainted.You’re clearly exhausted and in pain.You have a few broken ribs.Not to mention you’re still going to need some stitches there in your forehead,” he says, reaching out towards her face.Arya flinches away but the reassuring squeeze of Gendry’s fingers soothes her.“Let me know if there’s any tenderness.” 

 

Sam gently presses his fingers to the wound on her head and Arya hisses.Her entire head and face throbs.“There?” Arya nods as Sam continues to gently probe the wound.“You most likely have a concussion - a bruise on your brain under the skull.They can be very dangerous if you don’t keep an eye on them.Dizziness, vomiting, headaches, sensitivity to light and loud noises, exhaustion, confusion, memory loss, impaired judgment…”

 

Sansa releases a shaky, unamused laugh and turns away from the bed, rubbing her temples.Jon’s frown deepens. 

 

“I feel fine,” Arya urges.She looks around the room cataloging every else’s injuries.Jon is covered in blood and keeping his weight to one side.Sansa is filthy with dirt and mud and Arya’s blood.Sam and Gilly aren’t much better.Gendry has some small cuts on his face, some larger ones on his arms.His shoulders are bunched up by his ears.Arya resists the urge to push them down.“I’m fine,” she says again.

 

“Forgive me, my lady, but you’re not.You’re probably still feeling a bit of adrenaline.Soon your body will start to come down and you’ll feel the pain more intensely.You’ll also become very tired.Too much movement or effort would only drag on your recovery.”

 

“Recovery,” Arya snorts.“There’s no time for that.”

 

“At least for the rest of the day, Arya.Please,” Jon begs, squeezing her shoulder.Through the window on the far wall, the sun has finally risen in the sky.

 

“There’s plenty of organizing to be done,” Sansa says, face carefully smoothed over, void of emotion.“While you have many talents, that is not one.We can spare you for the night.Tomorrow you can join us again to pay honor to the fallen.” 

 

Arya holds her sister’s gaze.Sansa’s eyes are red-rimmed and raw.Arya wonders who she is thinking about.Who she is worried to have lost.Theon and Bran and Ser Brienne and even the Hound.Arya wants to take her pain away, to ease her worry. 

 

She relents.

 

“Only until tomorrow,” she says, pulling the bloody sheets up around her waist.The entire room exhales with relief. 

 

“Okay,” Jon says with a soft smile.“Sam will stitch your head and then get some rest.”

 

“Well,” Sam says, looking red around the ears.“My stitches are adequate but not exactly nice.Given the location of the wound-”

 

“I’ll do it,” Sansa chimes.It occurs to Arya that they’re worried about her face - making it uglier than it already is, she imagines. 

 

There’s a knock at the doorframe.Daenerys’ Unsullied commander, Grey Worm, stands against the light coming from the window.“You’re needed,” he says to Jon.He offers no titles of pleasantries. 

 

Jon nods.“Sam will assist you,” he says to Sansa, making for the door. 

 

“Actually, Jon, if Lady Sansa doesn’t need me, there are many other, I’m sure, who are in need of aid.” 

 

Jon nods again.“Gilly, then.”

 

“I have to go find Little Sam.I left him with some of the maids.” 

 

“I can help,” Gendry chimes, squeezing Arya’s hand again.Jon frowns, seeming to have forgotten Gendry’s presence altogether. 

 

“You-”

 

“Yes, thank you Gendry.That would be perfect.”Jon and Arya both eye their sister.She ignores them, collecting the soiled clothes and bowl of dirty water.

 

“My lord,” Grey Worm urges from his place at the door.Jon ignores him.

 

“I’ll go find some fresh water and rags so that we can take care of that wound.” Sansa eyes Arya’s newly red sheets.

 

“Let me help you,” Gilly says, reaching for the bundle in Sansa’s arms.She and Sansa, as well as Sam, make their way past Grey Worm and out the door. 

 

“Jon,” Grey Worm says again. 

 

Jon sighs.He brushes past Gendry and strokes over Arya’s hair.“Rest, please.”

 

“Fine,” Arya relents with a frown.Jon smiles though and kisses her cheek before casting one last confused glance at Gendry and taking his leave. 

 

And now it’s just the two of them. 

 

Gendry pins her with a weary, exhausted look.He pushes his breath out through pursed lips.“Hi,” she says, reaching up to poke at one of the cuts on his cheek.He chuckles, pulling her finger away and kissing it, then her palm. 

 

“Hi.”Arya reaches up to hold his dirt-smudged face between her hands.She moves to pull him down but her muscles are too weak.She’s too tired.Gendry takes pity on her and leans his face down closer to her, pressing a soft kiss to her lips, her cheek, her shoulder.He noses at her throat.“It was you,” he breathes out against the blue bruising from the Night King’s grasp.“You did it.”

 

Her chest clenches painfully, the events of the night catching up to her all at once. Hot tears rush to her eyes.A deep, wet gasp escapes her chapped lips. Gendry pulls her closer, laying his head on her shoulder.Arya wraps her arms out his shoulders and squeezes with as much strength as she can manage. 

 

“I thought I was going to die.I thought we all were,” she cries, humiliation and guilt pinking her cheeks and making her throat ache.“I thought, I thought - and Bran.And, and _Theon_.I just had to stand there and watch him _die_.He _died_.”

 

“Shhhh,” Gendry urges gently, leaning up on his elbows to push her matted hair away from her face.“I know.It’s alright.”

 

“No, it’s _not_!”

 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, cupping her cheek.“You’re right.It’s not alright.Nothing is.”He rubs his thumb along her lips to soothe her frown.“We weren’t supposed to live.But we’re here.I don’t know what we’re supposed to do now,” he admits. 

 

Arya wants to say she knows what she _wants_ to do.She wants to revel in the second chance at life her family has been given.She wants to pull her brothers and Sansa and Gendry close and never let them go.To live a long, safe life without death or fear. 

 

But Arya knows death too well.She has a list to finish, a queen to kill.There’s so much to do.But for now, she promised she would rest. 

 

“I don’t know either,” Arya says. 

 

Gendry rests his forehead against hers and they lay like that in silence.Too soon, he kisses her once and then pulls back.“Arya, last night -”

 

Sansa comes in.“Alright, let me see your head,” she says, placing a fresh bowl of water on the side table.She stops moving for a moment when she sees their position, pressed so closely together, but the movement is so minuscule anyone but Arya would miss it.With a smoothing of her features, Sansa immediately continues.“Help her sit up. Won’t you, Gendry?”

 

“Yes,” he says, wrapping an arm around Arya’s shoulders and another at her waist.He pulls her up and Arya bites on her tongue to keep down a whimper of pain.She swings her legs over the side of the bed and Gendry steps away.“What else can I do?”

 

“Clean some of the blood from her face while I thread the needle.I need to be able to see what I’m doing.” 

 

Gendry nods, dipping a clean rag into the bowl of water before ringing it out again.He steps closer, between Arya’s legs, and raises the rag gently to her temple.The first touch hurts and Arya winces.“Sorry,” Gendry mutters, eyes focused.Each touch after that hurts less and less.When most of the blood is cleared away from her head and face, Gendry tucks her dirty hair behind her ear with soft fingers and cups her cheek.“There,” he says with fondness. 

 

Arya smiles at him tiredly and Sansa clears her throat.“Ready?” she asks, stepping forward, needle in hand.Gendry chokes on his breath and steps away to let the sisters closer.Arya grabs his hand before he can get too far, though, and urges him to sit on the bed beside her.Sansa makes no comment, only moving to replace Gendry between her sister's legs and prodding gently at the wound. 

 

Arya has seen how fast her sister can stitch.However, this time she goes almost desperately slow, careful to keep her line straight and even.Her brow is furrowed and her eyes intense as she pinches at Arya’s skin and sews it back together again.Arya could almost roll her eyes at how worried Sansa is about a tiny scar. 

 

After some minutes Sansa pulls away.“There,” she says, admiring her work and stroking along the line with a gentle touch.“Now, get some rest, will you?I have to go check on Bran now.Gendry will watch over you.”It isn’t a question.

 

Gendry looks startled, having expecting to be asked to leave.Sansa meets his gaze with the calm burning stare all Stark women seem to have perfected.“Yes.Yes, of course, my lady.”

 

“Good,” Sansa nods and turns her attention back to her sister.“I’ll send some food up for you both later.Otherwise, I don’t want to see you until tomorrow.” 

 

Arya nods. 

 

Sansa pulls Arya into her arms with a fierce hug.She squeezes her tight and strokes a hand down the back of Arya’s hair.“Okay,” she says again, kissing Arya’s cheek.Then she’s out the door. 

 

Gendry releases her hand and moves to the side table.He rinses the bloody rag clean and brings it to Arya’s arms with gentle strokes.Over several minutes he wipes her clean, washing away blood and dirt and the stench of the dead.They don’t speak.Arya gazes into space, lost in her own thoughts, trusting Gendry to take care of her.

 

And she does trust him.She trusts him with everything in her.She trusted him when they were children to keep her safe.She trusted him with making her weapon.She trusted him with her body.She trusts him. 

 

But she’s also afraid.She knows what she wants but she doesn’t know how to want it.And she doesn’t know what _he_ wants.Does he want to be with her?Did he want to lie with her?Or was he humoring her on what they both assumed would be their last night among the living?The thought petrifies her. 

 

She trusts him, but she’s also afraid of him.She’s afraid of how much she wants to be with him - how much she wants him to want to be with her.

 

But he’s not saying anything.He wipes the last of the blood from her body and drops the soiled rag back in the bowl.He cups her face, kisses her forehead and her eyelids and her lips just once.Then he urges her back onto the bed and covers her in furs.He sits in the chair beside her bed and strokes his fingers over her hair with sad eyes. 

 

“Rest,” he says. 

 

Arya closes her eyes and does just that. 

 

-

 

She dreams that she’s her beloved Nymeria, running through an unfamiliar forest - a place she’s never explored before.She can feel other beings around her but doesn’t feel afraid, only the contented pumping of her heart in her chest and the _love, love, love_ pulsing through the open air around her.She feels unearthed.She feels free.It’s all she’s ever wanted.

 

-

 

She sleeps through the rest of the day and the whole of the night.In the morning she gazes up at Gendry’s sleeping form, still perched in the chair beside her bed.Through the window, the sun is just beginning to rise once again.

 

Her dream comes back to her with vivid clarity.Suddenly, the walls of her childhood room feel too small.Her chest constricts.She can’t breathe. 

 

She pulls herself out of bed, muffling her groan.She dresses quickly and casts one final glance at Gendry before moving out the door. 

 

The next time she sees him everything will be different. 


End file.
